As usual the piece de resistance was the corrective protocol for the shoulder, which can deliver amazing results in a few minutes (albeit eye watering minutes).  The secret to the method of to treat the shoulder as a functional unit, that is to say, work all of the muscles that control shoulder movement.  Very few people do this, but when done right it can give you back movement you had given up for lost.

Other big parts were the hip treatments, and a nice little method for treating knees that sends physio’s running to the hills in utter fear!

I demonstrated a hamstring treatment on one delegate.  By the end his damaged hamstring was more flexible that his good one, again showing the amazing results you can get with proper, targeted soft tissue work, and when it some to this type of therapy, neuromuscular re-education really is the gold standard.

And for those emerging runners who have picked up an injury…you know where to come!

Weather

UPDATE: According to the BBC, we can expect temperatures on Sunday to be 19C! So definitely read the section on water below!

The forecast at the moment for the London Marathon on Sunday is 14C, with rain. 19C and sunny This provides almost perfect running conditions; not too hot, but not too cool either.  Hopefully the rain will be light, too. This makes life a bit harder, so keep hydrated and stay out of the sun all day Saturday and Sunday morning.  Keep your skin covered with a light long sleeved top as long as possible to prevent moisture evaporating from the skin.

Dressing for the weather is very important, but rather than haul a jacket around with you, take a bin liner and tuck it into your shorts.  If it does get too wet, unfold it and tear a hole in it,, and put it over your head.  This will provide emergency cover from the elements and provide some basic insulation  Don’t worry what you look like; by 17 miles no one, least of all you, will care what you look like.

Clothing

If you want to get ahead get a hat.  Seriously.  A hat will keep the sun off and stop the rain getting in your eyes.  But don’t opt for a trilby or a panama, go for a lightweight cotton hat.  You can now buy running hats, but my recommendation is to buy a cycling cap, or casquette.  These are the short brimmed hats you used to see the Tour de France riders using.  You can pick up an out of season team hat at a decent bike shop, and they only cost a few pounds, which means if after a few miles you get sick of it, you can just chuck it away and keep going.

Skincare

Vaseline is the lubricant of choice for many, but it’s the wrong choice.  Opt for Sudacreme or Savlon.  They provide the protective layer without being too slippery, and will not heat up (Vaseline absorbs heat, so gets hot).  Their real advantage though is the antibacterial element.  When you chaff you allow bacteria to enter the skin, so it swells and gets sore.  The anti-bacterial properties of these prevent this.  Buy a small tube from the chemist and either put it in your pocket, or squeeze some into a ziplock bag (about 5 fingers worth) and tuck it into your shorts.  It will not look pretty by you can then just scoop a load out when you need too and then toss the bag away.

More clothing

You will be waiting around at the start for a while, so you’ll need to keep warm.  Dig out and old sweatshirt or cardigan, or go to a charity shop and buy one.  About a quids worth will do.  Wear it at the start and for the first few miles whilst you get up to pace, then dump it.  There are no fashion prizes in a marathon, and you don’t want to haul that performance fabric training top along with you all the way either.

Water

Drink more water this week.  Add a litre a day to your normal usage.  You will need to go to the toilet more often, but after a day or two that will subside as your body starts to store the water.  Oh, and the more carbs you eat, the more water you can store, which leads us onto…

Food

Almost everyone knows about eating more carbohydrates before the race, and just go off and eat lots of pasta.  Wrong.  You cannot just eat carbs – you need to balance the metabolic effect of these with some protein, so get some meat or fish in with the pasta.  Porridge is even better, but rather than have tuna and oats (fishing communities in the north of Scotland used to eat fish heads packed with oats daily, and they were in amazing shape) use a protein powder either mixed in with the porridge, or as a drink on the side.

Pain killers

A common question I am asked is should you take painkillers before the race.  Not if you can help it.  It may sound like a good idea to take anti-inflammatories, but you risk gastric upset at a time that your body is working very hard.  If you must, take a couple of ibruprofen with you for later on, so if you absolutely need something, you have it to hand.

Food, again

A client of mine a few years ago stopped on the Embankment for a hot-dog and chips.  He said that he saw the van, and just knew he had to have some before hitting the last 5 miles.  He finished well, so he obviously needed it, but I am not sure you are going to see this in any nutrition plan!

Good luck on Sunday!

April Fools Day.

Rather than engage in reasoned debate, and you know, maybe take part in a scientific study or two, the Chiropractic governing body took a leaf out of the American textbook and launched a court action, claiming that they had been accused of dishonesty.

Dr Singh. a writer with no large paying membership to fund expeditionary court proceedings, was forced into hock to defend himself, and was assisted by charitable donations from those keen to defend his freedom of expression.

Fortunately, the Court of Appeal had no time for the BCA’s bullying of a journalist, and declared his right to make “fair comment’.

I am delighted.  Everyone should have the right to question claims made by therapists, some of which are outrageous, without fear of receiving a court summons, the aim of which is not to establish the truth, but to force the defendant in to submission.  I have always supported this right and encourage people to question the validity of all “healing” treatments, including my own.  But then I don’t claim to be able to cure colic (chiropractic), or increase fertility (acupuncture).

So, there you go, the British Chiropractic Association have been declared by the Court of Appeal as the official April Fools!

BBC story is below (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8598472.stm)

A science writer has won the right to rely on the defence of fair comment in a libel action, in a landmark ruling at the Court of Appeal.

Simon Singh was accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association over an article in the Guardian in 2008.

Dr Singh questioned the claims of some chiropractors over the treatment of certain childhood conditions.

The High Court had said the words were fact not opinion – meaning Dr Singh could not use the fair comment defence.

‘Meaning of words’

However, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger and Lord Justice Sedley ruled High Court judge Mr Justice Eady had “erred in his approach” last May, and allowed Dr Singh’s appeal.

Dr Singh described the ruling as “brilliant”.

He said: “It is extraordinary this action has cost £200,000 to establish the meaning of a few words.”

In the article in April 2008, Dr Singh suggested there was a lack of evidence for the claims over conditions such as colic and asthma.

The British Chiropractic Association alleged that Dr Singh had effectively accused its leaders of knowingly supporting bogus treatments.

The case has become a cause celebre for science journalists and led to calls for defamation law to be rewritten so it would not intefere with scientific debates.

Standard of proof

Tracey Brown, spokeswoman for the Coalition for Libel Reform, said: “We are delighted with the judges’ ruling, but it does not go far enough.

“There is a cardiologist currently being sued by a device manufacturer, we have researchers who have been unable to publish their critique of lie detector technology because of threats of libel action.

“A major science journal is also currently being sued and our academics are being told to pull down blogs.”

BBC News correspondent Pallab Ghosh says that, had the High Court ruling stood, science journalists would have required a very high standard of proof to defend libel cases.

The vast majority of pain and injury conditions are caused by problems in the body’s soft tissues.

These are the muscles, tendons. and ligaments that support the body, and create movement.  In fact soft tissues have such a fundamental role in pain free physical performance that it is amazing that very few people spend time treating them.

This is why I established my Advanced Sports Massage Method, based entirely around the repair of the soft tissue problems that physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors are often unable to treat effectively.

If you have a sports injury, be it from running, tennis, rugby, football, martial arts or any other activity, or have a work based problem like back pain or RSI, or have a problem from a car accident, then I can help you, even if you have been told that your problem cannot be helped.

I guarantee an improvement in your condition, or the treatment is free.

]]> http://spencerjmcgawley.com/spencer-j-mcgawleys-soft-tissue-solution-the-drug-free-non-surgical-treatment-for-rapid-pain-and-injury-relief_574.html/feed 4 http://spencerjmcgawley.com/barefoot-running-bare-naked-truth-or-barefaced-lies_525.html http://spencerjmcgawley.com/barefoot-running-bare-naked-truth-or-barefaced-lies_525.html#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:30:35 +0000 admin http://spencerjmcgawley.com/?p=525 Great article in today’s Times about barefoot running. You may have heard about this before, not least because it is one of the fashionable fitness trends at the moment.

(In fact, I predicted this over a year ago in the Daily Express, so I am glad people are catching up with me).

Running barefoot remains a controversial topic, but actually, if you look closer, it is not that controversial at all.

The whole barefoot running movement is based on the principle that as human beings we are designed to run with minimal equipment on our feet, and that our reliance on shoes has actually retarded our ability to run, causing more injuries.

Let me explain the concept.

When you run in shoes (running or other) you tend to strike the floor with the heel first. This heels strike is followed by you rolling across and over your foot, before pushing off with your toes. Indeed, this is the movement that running shoes are designed to assist. Grab you shoes and look at the design – it doesn’t matter which brand, since they ll use the same principles.

Looks at the heel. There will be a softer bit of the heel, as compared to the rest of the sole. Some manufacturers out it at the bottom (e.g. Nike), and some put it higher up (e.g.. Asics). What this does is absorb the initial impact of the heel strike, and slow the foot movement down.

Next bit is the arch/midfoot area of the shoe. Most people have a grey bit of plastic in here which feels harder than the white sole. This is to provide support for your foot as it rolls over and through. The toe area tends not to have too much cushioning since here you need to be able to push off, so the thinner and harder the forefoot area the better.

Great.  For 30 years manufacturers have been refining this model, which is why technical running shoes cost about £90 these days.

However, take your shoes off and then run. Do you run heel to toe? No, because it hurts. You run on the midfoot. This being the case, then why do we run one way in shoes and another barefoot?

The barefoot and minimal support lobby claim that by running like this your are teaching your body to handle the forces generated through running in a natural way, whereas in shoes your body is being artificially assisted, meaning that the natural force dissipation is restricted, and thus you begin to get injuries as parts of the body are over stressed.

For runners who have spent years in heavily supported shoes it is hard to get their heads around not wearing shoes, but it does have merit. Indeed, if you look at shoes over the past 10 years the fashion to put large amounts of support in the designs has changed, and manufacturers now are all about allowing the foot to move naturally. Nike Free shoes are the best at this.

So what does this mean for the curious?

Well, a few years ago I decided to learn minimal support running. I was going through 3 pairs of expensive shoes a year and had a long term calf problem, so was looking for another way. I taught myself but took it slowly. In fact, for 6 weeks I did nothing but strengthening exercises – no running at all.

Then, I did 200m, 400m, 800m, slowly building up to my previous distances. It was not all plain sailing. Because I was teaching my body to move in a fundamentally different way I did get some aches and pains, but when I was finished i was able to run 6 miles in nothing but a pair of plimsoles.  And still can.

As for actually not wearing shoes, the whole “barefoot” angle is more about spiritual release and exercising your evolutionary right to run barefoot, than biomechanics, so I prefer a light shoe for basic protection. Puma H-Street (£20), Nike Free (£50 and good old plimsoles (£10) do the job well.

Just start slowly, and learn the method properly!

You can read the Times article here.

This means that you no longer have to trail across London to Harley Street for a session.  Now you can pop out for half an hour in the afternoon and be back before anyone notices that you are gone!

I am very excited to be expanding into The City, and say “welcome” to all my new clients, and a “welcome back for the first time” to my old ones!

The new number is 020 7060 5150, so give me a call to arrange your appointment.

Recently I worked with a former professional footballer.  He had retired at the grand old age of 26 with knee problems.  Indeed, for the last four years of his career, he had spent most of the time in the physios room at his club.  During this time he has been given cortisone injections to dull the pain, steroid injections to stimulate new tissue growth, arthroscopic sugery to trim any loose tissue away, injections of red blood cells to help recovery, ultrasound and laser therapy.  For Four Years.  And still he had to retire.

WHY?

He asked me “so, have I been having the wrong treatment?“.

What do you think?  Four years of treatment and still unable to play.  In this context would you consider that to be effective treatment?

Me neither.

His knees were certainly a mess, but it was clear to me that no-one had ever attempted to remove the scar tissue around the knee, and remove the inhibition that had resulted.  Until this was done, no amount of rehab work (and he had pretty much paid his dues to that) was going to work.

Now, working through the muscles that control the knee is pretty straight forward, but it had never been done.  And no-one, not his surgeon, physio or doctor has ever looked for problems in the “forgotten” muscle of the knee.

There is a small muscle deep in the knee that has a vital role in knee movement, but due to it’s relative inaccessibility, it is never treated.  And until this muscle begins to function correctly, you are going to get re-current knee problems, especially around the knee cap.  This was the case with the footballer, and I believe is the case with Rafael Nadal.  He need to get his “forgotten” knee muscles treated.

Any effective treatment or rehabilitative regime requires that all the soft tissues in the functional unit of a particular body part are treated systematically.  Until this is done, that pain isn’t going anywhere.